Wisniewski will not rule out subpoenaing Christie

New Jersey State Assemblyman John Wisniewski, the leader of the committee charged with investigating New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in the wake of the “bridgegate” scandal, said he will not rule out subpoening Christie during an interview on All In Thursday.

“We need to get to the bottom of a very simple question: What possessed Bridget Kelly to say ‘Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee?’ So we need to know what was the conversation before it… You had to have had a conversation before to understand what it meant. What was that conversation and who was it with? That’s what we’re going to try to find out.”

Asked if he was expecting a protracted legal battle, Wisniewski told Hayes, “I’m hoping that we don’t have one.”

“This is about public trust. Public trust was destroyed here because of somebody in the governor’s administration,” Wisniewski said. “This started out as an innocuous investigation into the operations and the finances of the Port Authority, and while we were doing that, they closed lanes out of Fort Lee…we follow [the email chain] piece by piece, and when we look up, we’re in the governor’s office. We didn’t want to be there.”

Wisniewski said the committee would not rule out subpoenaing Christie, but said “it’s premature.”

“We’re not ruling anything out, and we’re not ruling anything in. We’re going to take it piece by piece, step by step.”

An Assembly special committee charged with investigating the closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge last fall issued subpoenas for 17 individuals and 3 organizations on Thursday, as the New Jersey State Senate began its investigation.

Christie announced he would be retaining legal counsel Thursday, selecting a team headed by former federal prosecutor Randy Mastro.